Many retail merchants have found that customers appreciate shopping at a store with a liberal merchandise return acceptance policy. However, implementing a liberal return acceptance policy may significantly decrease the store's profitability when existing sales are rescinded and returned merchandise may need to be re-sold at a discount, if it is sold again at all. Merchants would therefore like to provide the desired liberal return acceptance policy while reducing loss of sales.
One strategy for the attainment of this goal is to provide a coupon to a customer making a return, thereby encouraging the customer to make a subsequent purchase. Such return coupons may be especially effective if they have only a very short period of validity, such as only one hour or only one day, so that the customer may be encouraged to make the subsequent purchase while still in the merchant's store.
Unfortunately, customers who receive such return-related coupons often put them into their pocket or purse, and may even forget about them. Furthermore, even if customer holds the coupon, it is typically not readily discernible from a distance by the store sales personnel who may see the customer passing by on the way out of the store. Thus, the sales personnel may not realize that the customer may be more easily persuaded than normal to make a purchase and may miss an opportunity to make a sale that might counterbalance the earlier return transaction. Even if the sales personnel do detect the coupon, the coupon typically does not convey any information about the recent return transaction or about the customer, which may prove relevant to the potential purchase.
In addition, the merchant typically has no way to track the customer's movements or activities while in the store or to see what was the effect, if any, of receiving the return coupon on the customer's movements or activities.